If you seek answers to improve Peoria School District 150, Grenita Lathan suggests a place to look:

The mirror.

She’s looking there, too, she says, in search of ways to battle what she views as the biggest obstacle facing the district.

Not test scores. Not staffing assignments. Not classroom curricula.

It’s communication.

For different reasons, she faults the media and parents — along with herself and district administration. If communication doesn’t improve, she says, the district will sputter.

Lathan is embroiled in the biggest controversy — over changing principals at Charter Oak Primary School — since coming to Peoria four years ago. She asked to speak with me in the wake of a recent column questioning her comments about critics’ motives. Lathan, along with school board member Linda Butler, talked to me about a handful of big-picture issues, especially communication.

First off, know this: I have no desire to carry her water: she has her own people for that. Nor did she ask me to be her mouthpiece. But she and Butler offered insight as to how and why the district has done things — and why Lathan thinks Peoria is more negative than other cities.

First, though, ponder this key question: What exactly does Peoria want out of the school district? If in reply you simply squawk, “Throw out the bums,” that’s not enough. If that’s your only stance, then you are part of the problem. Those aren’t Lathan’s words; those are mine. To affect public policy, you can’t just whine; you have to offer a plan of your own.

Every few years, Peoria blows its stack about District 150 and starts bellowing for “change.” The call for “change” is never like, “Boy, things would be great if we could turn back the clock five years.” The “change” call demands a new approach.

That was the aim in February 2010. To replace the retired Ken Hinton, the school board unanimously tabbed Lathan, 40, the interim deputy superintendent at San Diego Unified Schools. At the time, Butler, then vice president of the school board, said, “We have heard from many in the district that a change needs to come.

Debbie Wolfmeyer, then board president, echoed, “I told all of the groups that I talked to that we all keep saying we want change. Well, I hope that’s what you want, because I will tell you that we’re going to get change. It will be good change, but it’s just going to be a different atmosphere in this district, which is what we need.”

The next month, after getting to town, Lathan said, “I believe in making changes based on the needs of children, not the adults."

In other words, change was clearly foreshadowed — and Peoria seemingly had no problem with that.

Still, behind the scenes, Lathan and the board already had braced themselves. As they formulated a battle plan to shake up the district to improve school performance, Lathan — who knew of public reactions to similar efforts elsewhere — told the board, “Are you sure you want this? Because when this starts happening, people are going to be angry.”

District 150, like any urban district, faces challenges unseen in smaller school districts. The biggest root problem is a huge number of fractured families. If parents are overworked or uncaring or absent, parental involvement nosedives and kids often don’t care about school.

A school district can’t change households. Instead, it must focus on the classroom experience. Mind you, I’m no expert here; I don’t know one classroom curriculum from another. But for the most part, that’s not the issue when the public gets riled. The issue is the approach: how to best set up schools and classrooms to foster student success.

Four years ago, the school board and Lathan crafted “Peoria Public Schools Strategic Plan: 2011-2014.” It did not totally reinvent the wheel: many of its ideas for change had been cribbed from prior district strategic plans. For instance, the 2002 plan — four inches thick, a monster compared to the half-inch-thick Lathan plan — called for more accountability of principals and teachers.

To a great degree, the approach is simple, almost obvious. Educators — teachers, principals — should be evaluated on a consistent basis, to push toward improvement and goals. Sometimes goals involve individual shortcomings; others might involve new teaching methods or technology. To the latter extent, not all educators like to make those adaptations, but they’re necessary in today’s world, Lathan says.

“You can’t use the same lesson plan from 10 years ago,” Lathan says.

Further, in prior administrations, problems often went unaddressed. One educator might have a complaint about another educator, but never went through proper channels. Nothing changed.

“When there were issues, people weren’t courageous enough to put them in black and white.

But, Lathan says, all of this documentation isn’t designed as simply a rod for discipline: it also notes improvement and solid performance. That way, a positive work history is recorded for the next boss or superintendent, as well as the current one.

“I want to see that, too,” Lathan says.

Yet when Lathan arrived, she saw little documentation. So, she made evaluations commonplace.

Also as part of the plan, she moved people around, including 13 principal changes in March 2011. The theory holds that fresh eyes give new perspective. Lathan says the intent is not to keep employees on edge — critics still complain about a culture of fear — but to avoid a sense of comfort that begets complacency.

Some of these moves came with eager approval by those principals. Some accepted the transfers as a way to further their career, to get to another school or job in the future. And some just didn’t like the moves.

Again, the plan was no secret. Yet voices of protest immediately greeted the change. One alumni leader, grousing over a switch at Peoria High School, told reporters, “It’s worked so well, the combination we have here, so why do this?”

I would never say Grenita Lathan — or any superintendent or administrator — is incapable of mistakes. And perhaps much of the protest historically has been heartfelt. Still, the opposition sometimes sounds like that of dim loudmouths who decry politicians. “They’re all thieves and liars! Throw ‘em all out of office.” But when real political change is possible — say, with term limits or a new candidate — those same complainers wouldn’t dream of taking action: “Don’t mess with my guy: change everything else, everywhere else.”

Lathan says she has tried to explain her strategic plan to the public. She feels that if people understood the plan, even if it might sting at their own school for a while, they wouldn’t continue with knee-jerk reactions. And when discipline occurs, perhaps they wouldn’t be so quick to look for clandestine motives by Lathan or the board.

To a large degree, she blames the news media for any knowledge gap between the district and the public. She thinks reporters are more interested in contentious comments and headlines — such as the battle regarding Charter Oak Primary School — than in explaining policy.

I can’t speak for all media. But in general, yes, blow-ups — especially when well organized and attended — will get coverage. If there’s a rally or flood of emails, reporters take notice.

Meanwhile, Lathan wonders why news media don’t cover more of what she calls “good things” that happen at District 150. Lathan says the district always pushes positive stories via the online Remarkable Times (www.psd150.org/domain/9), which lists all sorts of district tidbits. But reporters operate like the rest of the world: person-to-person discussion gets things done best. Lathan says she realizes that, but she, her administrators and her spokesman are often caught up with multiple tasks and don’t have adequate time for reporters.

Time-wise, I get that. But policy-wise, it’s just not good. Believe it or not, reporters like to write positive stories. But if no one is telling us those stories, we’ll find something else to write about, perhaps by following a tip from some guy screaming into a phone about District 150.

Lathan expresses dismay that reporters don’t report the entirety of stories. And that does happen sometimes. Maybe there’s a deadline. Maybe a reporter is new. Maybe a reporter screwed things up.

Or maybe District 150 needs to help more. Some beat reporters in town say Lathan is hard to reach.

That brings us to the reason for our meeting: a column I recently wrote about her statement to reporters, “I’m disappointed because I don’t believe people want District 150 to succeed.” That astounded me, that people disliked Lathan and the district so much that they actually want little kids to fail? If so, I wanted her to explain such a motive.

In our discussion last week, she said that she’d simply been making a point: naysayers who shriek only negativity must want failure. OK, fine. But before the column ran, I requested her input, but got none. Instead, for context, her spokesman sent me a 20-minute audio file of her comments. But I can’t ask questions of an audio file.

Further, last week, Lathan expressed regret that the file didn’t include all of her comments. As I pointed out, that’s not my fault. District 150 needs to do a better job at things like this.

Meantime, Lathan also says parents bear a degree of responsibility to educate themselves. Many times, she and her administrators hear complaints that have no basis in fact: they get a story fourth-hand and consider it gospel.

It’s hard to argue with her point here: if you have a complaint, or if you’re joining a protest, is it not wise to investigate the matter yourself? At lot of times, the information is there, from the newspaper or the school district. If you’re going to expend the energy to gripe, why not expend a little more to research? If you really want to change things, that’s where to start.

Also, Lathan thinks some opponents are nursing old grudges, from their own or their kids’ experiences with the district. Butler says the runaway negativity far precedes Lathan.

“There’s so much disrespect,” she says.

She thinks much of that disrespect fomented when cable broadcasts of school board meetings allowed people to make baseless accusations, with heavy drama. Some would sing; one launched into a dialogue with herself. Those broadcasts ended in 2010; the meetings are shown online, but without public comments. Still, at those meetings, people can say just anything; sometimes, media report those accusations before investigating.

All of this acrimony has mounted to a point, according to Butler, that some administrators don’t attend church anymore: they get badgered too much, even in a house of worship.

That kind of rude doggedness still amazes Lathan, even after four years here. Other cities have troublesome schools, but no place has a preoccupation with schools and negativity like Peoria, she says. Other cities don’t fixate so much on a school administration: they have other civic concerns, she says.

“People ... move onto other things,” Lathan says.

Still, Lathan says she isn’t personally offended by the negativity: it goes with the territory. She has two years left on her contract and has no plans to leave.

Even if you can’t stand Grenita Lathan, what if she’s right about negativity? How does Peoria refocus toward a positive path?

Lathan points to communication. News media have to widen their vision. Parents and critics need to expand their district knowledge. And, I would add — as Lathan acknowledges, at least a little — that the district needs to explain itself better.

If these things don’t happen? The merry-go-round continues. Peoria languishes.

Lathan stresses that she does not mind hard talk. But discourse must be reasonable, aimed at finding solutions, not just pointing fingers.

“People have to change,” Lathan says. “Hearts have to change.

“That’s still my hope.”

PHIL LUCIANO is a Journal Star columnist. He can be reached at pluciano@pjstar.com, facebook.com/philluciano, 686-3155 or (800) 225- 5757, Ext. 3155. Follow him on Twitter @LucianoPhil.